Two police killed, 800 escape in DRC jailbreak

More than 800 inmates have escaped from a prison in eastern DR Congo after gunmen staged a jailbreak in which two policemen were killed, sources said yesterday.

Armed men "attacked Kakwangura central prison in the town of Mutembo" overnight Tuesday, Captain Antony Mualushayi, the military spokesman in the Beni region, said.

"The initial toll, which is still provisional, is two policemen killed," he said, adding that an assailant had also died.

A source in the prison service, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that out of the 872 inmates, all but 49 had escaped.

Mualushayi said an "unidentified Mai-Mai group" carried out the attack. The term Mai-Mai refers to an ethnic self-defence organisation, which are legion in the Democratic Republic of Congo's troubled east.

But a respected US-based monitor, the Kivu Security Tracker (KST), said on Twitter that the suspects were the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) -- a bloody militia that the Islamic State group says is its regional affiliate.